The Fire Child

by S. K. Tremayne

  He watched as she disappeared past the girl in the red Santa hat, who was now singing a Christmas pop song. He sat down again. David had a bulbous glass of pricey Tempranillo to finish. A different, drunken woman, with tinsel wrapped around her head, was now kissing some surprised but happy young man, full on the lips.

  It was Christmas. That special time was approaching. The time of lawless merriment, when you could do what you liked. The time of misrule.

  And David knew what some deep, appalling part of himself wanted to do. What was once a brief, ludicrous fantasy now presented itself as a distant but actual possibility. He had one more chance with the sectioning: using everything that he’d learned – and hope to God that Anne would persuade the second doctor of Rachel’s insanity, her psychosis, whatever it was.

  And if that didn’t work?

  Pushing the wine away, he stared glumly at all the cheering and boozing people.

  He recalled another phrase his father used to quote, when they drove the coast near Carnhallow, on those few rare days when he talked to his son, when he was at home. It was a line from a poem about West Penwith. This is a hideous and a wicked country, Sloping to hateful sunsets and the end of time. After saying this, Dad would chortle as if it was some enormous joke, and turn the car and go back to Carnhallow and take the next train to London, and the son was left, alone, in the hideous and wicked country.

  And now it felt like things were sloping, once more, to hateful sunsets. And the end of time.

  16 Days Before Christmas

  Afternoon

  Slowly I let out a breath I never even knew I was holding. The house is silent, yet it isn’t.

  Yet it is: I know these noises are in my head. I have been here before.

  The tinsel faintly weighs in my hand. The Christmas tree is naked and green, an innocently sinister presence in the Yellow Drawing Room. I am trying to decorate it, be normal, pretend that we are a regular family. But every few minutes I bite back the fear. And the memories. My husband who beat me. The man who waits behind the door. The man who comes down the chimney.

  Draping the golden tinsel over a branch, I bend to the box for another bauble: I want to get this done before it is dark. I want to fight the wintry night outside: when darkness comes across Carnhallow, in two or three hours, I want Carnhallow House to stand proud in its valley, with all its lamps shining. And in the corner of the Drawing Room, I want there to be a great green Christmas tree lavished with decorations, and besieged with boxed and bowed presents, symbolizing happiness and harmony.

  I know it is a farce. This family is shattered. But I can try.

  Yet even as I loop a golden-yellow bauble over a spiky spruce branch, I hear the brutish voice of my father, downstairs.

  It is always him. He will do it again and again. I can predict it, and I am imprisoned in this prediction, and I am going to die at Christmas.

  I think maybe a miniature Santa next. Yes. Then another stripy red-and-amber bauble. Then ignore the noises from the basement. They are so frequent now: strange rattlings, doors slamming for no reason, a broken, unhinged window creaking in winter rain – I have chosen to ignore them. Perhaps because I am not sure I am hearing them. Because I have been here before. Locked in madness, locked in a room, not knowing reality from imagination, not knowing hallucination from my hand in front of my face.

  I saw Nina. No I didn’t. Yes I did. I didn’t just see her, I smelled her perfume.

  Twining a tiny smiling plastic snowman on the big Christmas tree, I delve into the box for some more tinsel. Nice big bouffant red tinsel. Make the tree positively burlesque. I wonder what sort of Christmas tree Nina installed. No doubt it was elegant. Perhaps I should ask her.

  The best explanation I can find, the one that saves me from madness, is that she isn’t dead. Nina lives. Perhaps she attempted suicide, but failed, and was saved. I don’t know.

  But if she isn’t dead that means there is some enormous conspiracy, which is almost as crazy as the idea that there is a ghost out there cheerfully riding the buses through the rain-swept streets of St Just. And if she isn’t dead then the question is how did she possibly escape from Morvellan shaft? They DNA-tested the gruesome remains. The blood and fingernails left as she struggled to escape, before sinking in the black water.

  It is impossible. Everything is impossible.

  ‘Miss Rachel.’

  A jump of the heart.

  ‘Cassie?’

  ‘Sorry, Miss Rachel, there people at door. Three people. Want see you.’

  ‘People?’

  ‘Not know. Some people come from Truro. Want speak you.’

  She looks anxious. But then she always looks anxious these days, her eyes seeking me out, examining and assessing. Probably she wonders if I am mad, like all the others.

  I notice, now, that she is wearing a conspicuous new necklace. A leather thong with a little golden plaque showing the Buddha. I believe I know what it signifies. I’ve been to Thailand. ‘That’s nice,’ I say. ‘Your new necklace.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Yes, I buy online.’

  She is blushing. And again, I know why. Cassie is superstitious. And this is an amulet against evil. She now thinks there is evil here, in Carnhallow. And I have an idea that she thinks the evil is me.

  I look into her eyes. Defiant. ‘Please show them in here. And I guess we’ll have some tea. On a tray. Thank you.’

  Cassie disappears. I wonder who these guests might be; I wonder how I must appear. The bruises have all but gone from my face, but I daren’t look in mirrors for fear I will see myself. As I really am. A liar. A madwoman. Falling apart.

  Mumbled voices approach: it sounds like a man and two women, talking with Cassie outside the door. The voice of the man is recognizable: it’s the Kerthen family GP, Doctor Conner – ostensibly my doctor, though I rarely if ever see him. He is too close to David. I prefer the anonymity of walk-in clinics, overworked obstetricians who barely know my name.

  David’s doctor steps in, alongside a fair-haired girl, and a tall, smartly dressed woman.

  Crossing the room, I extend a hand. The older, taller woman smiles. ‘Hello, I’m Anne Williamson. I’m with Treliske. The psychiatric unit. This is Charlotte Kavenna, also from Treliske.’ She indicates the young woman. ‘A nurse with the psych unit. She’s a qualified mental health professional.’

  With a shudder of recognition, I realize what is going on: I know because it has happened to me before. Three people. One doctor. A qualified mental health professional. I do not invite them to sit. I realize perfectly well that I am fighting for my life. ‘You’re here to have me sectioned, aren’t you?’

  A wince of distaste flashes across Alan Conner’s face. He’s a decent man, if a bit starchy. I’ve seen him grovelling to David at social functions. But he is fundamentally OK. And he looks uncomfortable. I can see him looking at me surreptitiously. I wonder if he can see the traces of the bruising, and I wonder if he knows that David did it.

  ‘We’re here to do an assessment,’ says Anne Williamson, and her voice is crisp. Officious. ‘Your husband is concerned—’

  ‘Concerned? He’s concerned?’

  Even as I speak, I realize I am shouting. Yelling at these people.

  The two doctors gaze at me, startled. Cassie steps into the room with a tray of tea and biscuits and she also stares at me, mouth half-open. The entire house is regarding me with disdain. The crazy woman.

  Stupid, Rachel. Stupid. Don’t let them see how angry you are, how frightened, how scared you might be of slipping back into psychosis. I have to be an actress now. I have to be Sane Rachel, though my soul is so unstable. To save myself and my unborn baby.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘I was a bit shocked. Please have a seat, and some tea. Do your assessment.’

  The nurse speaks: ‘You know that you can ask to have someone with you, if you like.’

  ‘No,’ I say. It takes an effort to be calm. ‘I’m fine. Ask your questions.’

&nb
sp; Alan Conner looks like he wants to get this over and done as soon as possible. The nurse is surely irrelevant. So Anne Williamson is my real enemy. The bad cop. She’s the one with the calculating eyes, already drilling hard and fast into my head. Wanting to open me up, check the machinery, see where I’ve gone wrong, where my mind is wonky and broken. Put me back in that room in Woolwich General, from which I barely escaped.

  ‘It won’t take too long, Mrs Kerthen,’ says Alan Conner.

  I pour some tea. I smile blandly. Let them do their shtick. I can handle this, I hope, because I’ve been here before, with psychiatrists.

  Cassie is gone. The room gets ready to pounce. It’s me and my madness, and three people I do not know, who have the power to drag me away and lock me up.

  The first questions are predictable. Stuff about my life, stuff to make sure I know the name of the prime minister. Anne Williamson sips some tea and asks, ‘Do you ever think you are on TV? That people are watching?’

  She might as well ask: Are you actually a paranoid schizophrenic?

  ‘No. I don’t think that.’

  Her cup chinks in the saucer. She scrapes the saucer along the table, making a deeply irritating jangly noise. Then, from nowhere, ‘Do you, Mrs Kerthen, believe that your stepson Jamie can predict the future?’

  A pause. A stupid, dangerous pause. My lower lip is trembling. Or maybe it is my eyelid. I look at Alan Conner. It seems as if he is urging me on, nodding – subtly, discreetly – trying to help. But I am checked. Because I do wonder if Jamie can sometimes predict the future. I have wondered that, in idle and credulous moments. And the hare, I don’t understand the hare. How could he have foreseen that? It cannot be explained. But I can’t admit it. Can’t can’t can’t.

  ‘No, of course not. I don’t think that.’

  ‘What about the prediction that you are going to die at Christmas? Apparently, you’ – Anne Williamson is looking right into me, as she goes on – ‘heard Jamie say that, and it shook you. Is that correct?

  Don’t pause, don’t pause, don’t pause.

  I pause. There is sweat on my upper lip. I daren’t rub it off because that would look mad. ‘I did. I mean, he did, well. Um. He …’ I pause again. Oh, the royal fucking pauses. Why don’t they handcuff me and take me away? Put me in an armlock. Restrain me. It’s happened before. ‘He. He. Um. He. We used to sing this song, I’ve got pants, I’ve got pants, I’ve got pants that are bigger than my aunt’s.’

  Alan Conner has closed his eyes. The nurse – Charlotte – is blushing. Embarrassed on my behalf. They are going to take me away.

  I gulp some hot tea and manage to garble a better answer. ‘What I mean is uh is uh is uh we used to have fun together, stepson and stepmum, and say lots of silly things and I think maybe he said things as a joke, obviously a strange joke, but he was badly affected by his mum’s death and … Well … yes, he said something like that, but of course I don’t believe it has any, you know, basis in reality.’

  Is that enough? Unexpectedly the nurse takes over, and her questioning is softer, but just as dangerous.

  ‘Do you ever think about your husband’s late wife? Nina Kerthen?’

  I stall for time. ‘What do you mean, “think”?’

  Anne Williamson intervenes. ‘Have you, for instance, ever imagined that she might still be alive? Sensed her presence in Carnhallow, or elsewhere?’

  Quickly. Do not blush, do not flinch, do not admit that you saw her on the bus. Yet I want to say: I saw her on the bus. And I sensed her perfume in this room. I did I did I did. I want to say this, sing it out, be honest. YES, I SAW HER.

  My mouth trembles on the cusp of speech. I am going to admit it all. Yes, I saw her on the bus, she is alive, I believe in ghosts. She is back. At last I answer, ‘No.’

  Conner looks to the ceiling, as if to say Thanks be.

  Anne Williamson sits up even straighter. I get a sense she is running out of ideas. But I am still scared, and still wary, they can still clap me in irons, prick me with witch-hunting needles, open up my seething brain and see all the scuttling insects under the rock and then they will take me into care. For a very long time. I might not get out. I will not be allowed to look after my own baby.

  My enemy has picked up her smartphone and she is clicking on it, seeking some notes.

  ‘I’ve now got to ask you some really personal questions. About your past. And of course you can still ask someone to be here with you, Mrs Kerthen, if you prefer.’

  I am sure I’ve got to say ‘No’ to this as well. A surge of defiance rises, for the daughter inside me. Protect her by protecting myself. Yes. I have to be strong and sane for her, my baby girl. It isn’t only me, not any more.

  David has clearly been investigating me and he has discovered my past. But who cares. I’ve been through worse.

  ‘I’m fine.’ I give her a faked but confident stare. ‘Yes. Whatever. Ask away.’

  ‘Is it true you were sectioned when you were younger, and spent some time in Woolwich General Hospital, detained against your will?’

  No pause this time. No pause at all.

  ‘Yes.’

  Conner steps in. ‘We know this must be painful, Mrs Kerthen, but—’

  ‘It’s fine.’ I look at him and I allow myself a quiet smile. I have a trump card here. This is my past. And my past usually wins. ‘You see, I was raped.’

  They are silenced.

  The mental health professionals stare at each other. I guessed they didn’t know this. No one knows this. It is the law that no one ever learns this.

  ‘You were, um, raped?’ Anne Williamson looks nonplussed, for the first time.

  ‘Shall I tell you what happened, because you won’t find it in the records.’

  ‘Please.’

  I can see that Williamson wants to intervene, but she can go jump. This is my special story. No one gets to interrupt.

  ‘I was brought up a devout Catholic, you see. I still believed well into my teens. But after the rape – let’s say I never believed again.’

  Conner gazes at me, bemused, frowning. I go on, deliberately dragging this out, for effect.

  ‘For a few years, we were at a refuge. Me and my mum. My sister was already gone, most of the time, she had a boyfriend. And then someone broke into the last refuge, and he raped me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My father.’

  The silence in the room is the sound of my bitter triumph.

  ‘From the age of nine or ten, my dad abused me. He would come into my room. I remember it vividly, even now.’ I am looking Anne Williamson in the eye. ‘He would be drunk, always drunk. He’d grab me by my pigtails and … put himself in my mouth.’

  The nurse cannot look at me. She is averting her face. I feel a peculiar sense of vindication.

  ‘This stopped, my dad stopped, when I was twelve and I started fighting back. I was tough, wiry, angry – and I scratched and fought and nearly took out one of his eyes. So he left me alone from then on. But then he started on my mum. Beating her. On and off. For years. Eventually we moved to refuges around South London, but every time he tracked us down, tried to get in and get at us, and we had to move again.’ There is a choke of emotion in my throat. ‘My education was screwed by the chaos, the violence, the moving. I had to take any old job from the age of sixteen. Help my mum out. But somehow I got some A-levels, working nights, reading all day. Maybe because I was still a fighter. Determined. And then I was twenty-one. I was going to make my own escape, at last, and go to university, to Goldsmiths. I’d done work for a photographer, assisting. It was nothing much, just minimum wage. But I knew I had talent. And I knew I wanted to do that: learn photography, properly.’ I pause, letting the idea weigh on them. ‘Then one day I came back to the room, in the refuge, to get my bag, and I had no idea he was inside, waiting for Mum. And he decided I would do, instead of Mum. He grabbed me, punched me, used a knife on me, threatened me. And he raped me, for hours.’

  Anne Williams
on has nothing to say. The nurse is hiding her face.

  ‘Then, yes, months later, I had a breakdown. I didn’t tell anyone. Not at first. I felt a kind of shame, I suppose. But I stopped believing in God, and then when I lost that I felt there was nothing to stop me falling through the floor. I started cutting myself.’

  The doctors say nothing.

  ‘It was my mum who called the doctors. She found me slicing my arm, hacking at myself with scissors. I fought the doctors, but she was right. I would have killed myself. In effect I would have let him, my father, kill me.’

  I do believe the nurse is nearly crying. I look at her, then go on, calmly enough. It all works so much better if I am calm.

  ‘I was sectioned. For a few weeks. For my own protection. I had a brief psychosis. But only for a few weeks. What is the term? Brief schizophreniform disorder. A brief psychosis. But, I ask you, who wouldn’t have gone a bit mad, after all that?’

  The silence holds. Then I notice Doctor Conner is standing. He steps around the table, and takes my hand and he holds it in his, and he looks me firmly in the eye.

  ‘I’m so sorry to have put you through all this, Rachel. All this absurdity. I’m so very sorry. I think we’ve asked more than enough questions. I don’t think you’ll be hearing from us again.’

  Anne Williamson says nothing. She looks guilty. The nurse comes across and shakes my hand as well and then dashes another tear from her eye and the three of them walk to the door. As they step outside, Doctor Conner turns and says:

  ‘I hope you will be all right? I understand David is not here at the moment.’ He gives me a look that seems to say: I understand why. His smile is earnest and sincere. ‘If you want anything, please call me.’

  And then he is gone. And I am victorious.

  And then I turn and look at my completed Christmas tree.